


Parting Gifts (a.k.a. Love in the Time of Alien Invasion)

by Ambitious_Rubbish



Series: Miscellaneous Miscellanea [3]
Category: XCOM (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:40:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25081774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ambitious_Rubbish/pseuds/Ambitious_Rubbish
Summary: To have something precious, only to lose it, is perhaps one of the most painful things one can experience.But perhaps more painful still is the death of promise. To catch a glimpse of something wonderful, only to know it’s a dream that can never be realized.
Series: Miscellaneous Miscellanea [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1910671
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

Oil and water.

Cats and dogs.

Fire.

And Ice.

Lieutenant Carrie Nolan, callsign “Fire” was Blue Team’s medic. Sorry, “combat lifesaving specialist.” She was brash, headstrong, with a temper that couldn’t be quenched with a hundred pints of Guinness. (She was Irish. Of course it was Guinness.) She was also perhaps the kindest, gentlest person in all of XCom. Unless, of course, you were a heartless xeno trying to murder someone in her squad, in which case that nasty temper reared its ugly head, and wild, badly-aimed gunfire was sure to ensue.

Now, common sense would seem to say that she and Captain Elena Darwin, callsign “Ice,” should never work together. Should never be in the same room together. Should certainly never be anything remotely like friends.

Why?

Because Darwin was equally headstrong. Equally stubborn. Equally unmoving. It was the classic case of Unstoppable Force vs. Immovable Object.

But a shared love of obstinacy was pretty much where the similarities ended. Elena Darwin suited her callsign to a “T.” The woman’s blood was one part ice water, two parts stoicism. She was a woman who did not suffer fools gladly, and Nolan? In her mind, Nolan was a fool. Completely unprofessional. Driven by emotion, instead of logic. And on top of everything else, badly trained.

In short, a _fool._

So, yes, indeed, it seemed like just plain common sense that dictated these two couldn’t – shouldn’t – be friends.

And, in all fairness, they weren’t friends.

What they were was considerably more than that.

There was a rule somewhere – a line or two, maybe even a full paragraph – buried in the regulations manuals that governed the conduct of XCom personnel. It was a rule that might even have been enforced if there wasn’t an invading alien horde breathing down everyone’s collective necks.

But seeing as how there was every likelihood of the world soon ending in fire and wailing and gnashing of teeth, most folks felt that there were far better things to worry about than who was cuddling with whom during Base Movie Night. Or, say, who was having lunch with whom on Corn & Mayonnaise Day in the commissary. Definitely more important things to worry about than who was _bunking_ with whom. Really, nobody much cared as long as the alien-sized body bags kept getting filled, and the human-sized ones kept staying empty.

And then one day, that all changed.


	2. Chapter 2

Carrie had volunteered.

Of course she had.

_Everyone_ had volunteered. And Vahlen had tested every last one of them. Out of desperation? Probably. Out of ruthless Germanic efficiency? Definitely. Besides, the odds of actually finding someone who fit the bill were terrible. They had to draw from as large a pool as possible.

And as expected, nobody made the cut.

Well, almost nobody.

Carrie had walked out of that chamber with a splitting headache.

And the ability to read minds.

All in all, it was a pretty worthwhile trade, or so all the higher-ups kept saying. Vahlen couldn’t stop babbling about how this discovery would change everything. At the opportunities for incredible scientific advancement and how this was an immense coup for humanity as a whole. Shen wrung his hands at the mere thought of soldiers that could kill you with their brains.

Bradford-

Bradford didn’t give a single, solitary damn about anything other than the fact that this was a great way to ensure that that colossal ship that had just appeared in Earth orbit was reduced to scrap metal.

That, and there was a loose thread on his favorite sweater.

As for the Commander…

Well, the Commander had never been much of a talker. Someone, somewhere in the base probably had an idea of what he thought of the whole business. But they’d never get confirmation. And really, it didn’t matter. All that did matter was that suddenly, all the hopes of an entire species embroiled in a global-scale war, lay upon the shoulders of one smart-assed redhead.

Darwin found the whole business immensely unsettling. Not that anyone would know it from looking at her, of course. That impossible sangfroid of hers, hard at work and everything. But the truth was, she _was_ rattled. For a lot of reasons.

She’d come to develop a healthy respect for the members of her team. That included one Lieutenant Nolan. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her to do the job to the best of her ability, she just wasn’t sure that would be good enough. She wasn’t sure _anyone_ could do the job well enough. And when anyone asked why she seemed so bothered by the notion of Carrie being “The Chosen One,” that was the answer she gave: “She’s good, I guess. But I don’t know if she’s good enough. I don’t know if anyone’s good enough.”

There was more to it, of course. Like the nightmares that, for a long time now, had been keeping her up at night – Carrie being abducted. Being experimented on. Being _dissected_ the same way Vahlen picked alien corpses apart to glean some paltry insight into how their innards worked. The dreams always ended the same way: some gruesome, horrifying fate befalling her teammate. Her friend. Her…

Whatever she was.

Even in her own head, Elena wasn’t very good at putting labels to things. All she knew was that she’d never expected to actually care about the infuriating redhead who pushed all her buttons and who drove her crazy on a regular basis. But she did. There was no more lying to herself about that. And even if she wanted to pretend that Carrie didn’t matter to her, the fact that she was waking up every night bathed in cold sweat, trembling from the dreams that she just couldn’t shake, made that impossible.

And now, this: the big one. _The_ Big One. A battle for the entire planet, for the soul of humanity itself.

There was every chance none of them would be returning alive.

Elena accepted that. She’d come to grips with it. It was that little thing buzzing away at the back of her head. It never left her, but it no longer stole away all her attention for itself, either.

The problem was, she wouldn’t be going out there alone. Her every instinct screamed at her that she needed to protect her team – that their survival was the only thing that mattered. But she knew that wasn’t true. She might have to spend their lives in a desperate bid to ensure the continued existence of the entire human race. Might have to spend _Carrie’s_ life.

She was having serious doubts as to whether she could manage that if the situation ended up calling for it.

So, of course, it did.


	3. Chapter 3

And it didn’t even have the decency to happen the way she expected it would.

Against all odds, they’d _won._ The aliens had thrown everything, including the proverbial kitchen sink, at them. There were Sectoids, there were Thin Men. There were Chrysallids and Mutons and a Sectopod (oh, my.) She’d expected casualties. She’d expected that some of her friends would die. And while she’d never been much for religion, she had begun to think that maybe she owed a small “Thanks,” at least some tiny gesture of gratitude, to some kind of deity up there in the sky, watching out for them.

But then… this.

Images. Sounds. Even the tang of ozone and the horrific stench of burning blood. All of it was in her head, warring for her attention, turning her mind into a nightmarish hellscape where she couldn’t tell what was going on or why, only that she was surrounded by death. Lots and lots of death. This was the Ethereals’ “parting gift,” it seemed. A vision? A premonition? Or just one last burst of propaganda to twist the knife, to ensure that even if they lost, they won? Who knew?

But she saw what they wanted her to see: an enemy more mysterious and more frightening than even the Ethereals themselves, stalking their prey from world to world, leaving nothing but ashes and dust in their wake. Ashes, dust, and shattered lives.

She saw the remnants of Earth’s militaries being crushed under a phenomenally and incomprehensibly powerful new foe. Saw her planet being slowly and inexorably turned into a lifeless rock. This was the fate that awaited them, the alien rulers vowed. All their blood and suffering, their ceaseless struggle for “freedom,” and all it had wrought was more death, and the promise of humanity’s utter annihilation.

The images cleared, and Elena found that she wasn’t the only one who’d suffered through such a harrowing ordeal. The other members of the squad were shaking their heads, some groaning with pain, others almost moaning from fright. But they were alive. They would recover.

Or they would have, if only there’d been time.

And, as always, time was not something they had in abundance.

Through the haze that had settled over her mind – the haze that dulled her wits and slowed her reactions, she saw Carrie standing by a piece of alien equipment set into the middle of the dais that overlooked the rest of the chamber. It looked to be some sort of shrine, with an oddly pulsating… something atop a waist-high pedestal of some sort. Despite her confusion, she somehow recognized it for what it was: the controls for this ship.

She tried to stumble over in that direction, but the floor was suddenly no longer stable underneath her feet. She swayed, overbalanced, toppled to one knee, trying to brace herself upright with a hand. The rest of the squad were in similar straits. Harrison had dropped to her hands and knees, trying to claw her way back to a standing position. Jenkins looked like he was going to be sick. None of the others were faring any better.

Elena could tell that something was wrong. Horribly, desperately wrong. Wrong far beyond the scope of the screeching alarms echoing throughout the chamber, or the eerily flickering lights that cast terrifying shadows into every corner. She struggled, and finally, she regained her footing, resuming her lurch towards the central pillar. But that was when Carrie turned to her. The look on the other woman’s face was oddly peaceful, and for the rest of her days, Elena Darwin would see that face, and its almost dreamy, wistful expression, in her dreams.

And also in her nightmares.

Carrie shook her head. She raised an arm, and with an almost casual flick of the wrist, the entire squad found themselves being hurled – brusquely, yes, but not enough to injure – out of the room.

And then the door sealed in their faces.

They all stood there for seconds they really didn’t have, just staring at the unyielding barrier of alien metal that now separated them from their friend. Until finally, someone spoke.

“El. We gotta go.”

Next to Carrie herself, Charlene Harrison was the closest friend Elena had ever had. They’d known each other since their days crashing fraternity parties in college, and “singing” together in a hard rock band. (Yes, the stoic Elena Darwin had been quite the hellion in her younger days.)

“But-”

Harrison didn’t let her finish. “Elena. We have to go. _Now._ ”

She didn’t bother to wait for a response, instead taking her friend’s arm and dragging them back the way they’d come. Through corridor after corridor of dead aliens and destroyed automatons. Back to the Skyranger. To safety.

Elena fought her every step of the way. The effect of the Ethereals’ mind warping had begun to wear off, and she knew, now, where she was and what was happening around her. She knew that with every step she took, she was losing whatever tiny, ghostly, sliver of a chance that still remained to save the annoying redhead she’d come to…

… come to love.

Deep down, she knew it was hopeless. Knew the ship could explode any moment. They had to leave now, or not at all. And if it had been up to her – if it was just her life at stake and not the lives of her friends and teammates, she might’ve gone back. Gone back, if only so that Carrie, who, even now at this very moment, was guiding the ship to accelerate away from the planet with all the power its engines could muster, wouldn’t have to perish alone.

Because perish she would. There was no delaying it; certainly, there was no stopping it.

The realization took all the fight out of her. By the time she and the others made it to the transport, she had nothing left to give. Her foot hit the ramp, and as soon as it did, there was Mizuno, palming the controls to raise the hatch behind her.

“Kourellis! Get us out of here!” Harrison called forward to the cockpit. She bent over, shoving her friend into a jump seat, strapping her in, and barely making it to her own seat before the Skyranger violently lurched from a standstill to full military thrust.

Amidst the clattering and banging of gear against bulkheads, of the engines whining and rattling as the pilot frantically tried to coax every last erg of power from his engines, Darwin sat brooding. She looked almost peaceful, all snug in her harness, hands folded primly in her lap.

But her mind was in turmoil.

And then it got worse.

She would later reflect that she understood what Carrie had been trying to do. But at the time, there was nothing but pain. _Could be_ nothing but pain.

Pain as images – fragments of thoughts and dreams flooded her mind.

The two of them having lunch at a quaint little cafe just across from the Eiffel Tower.

Carrie dressed in a set of inappropriately short shorts and a tank top, bringing her lemonade as she refreshed the coat of paint on the white picket fence that surrounded the home they’d just bought.

The stubborn, mischievous, but irresistibly cute puppies they’d adopted, bouncing up onto their bed at an ungodly early hour on what should have been a lazy Saturday morning.

This was the life Carrie had envisioned for them.

It was a gift. It was supposed to have been a gift. But all Elena could think as she buried her head in her hands and the tears began to well up at the corners of her eyes, was that this was the life she would never, _could never_ have. She didn’t want these dreams, these figments of imagination. She didn’t want dreams of a life she could never have. She wanted the one person in all the world who could make those dreams a reality.

…

The Temple Ship exploded.

Down below, the people of Earth rejoiced as debris from the destroyed alien vessel began to burn up in the atmosphere. Many cheered at the fiery spectacle. Some hugged their loved ones. Others simply let out a sigh of relief.

But high above them, in a Skyranger fleeing the blast, Elena Darwin sat with her head buried in her hands.

She had nothing to celebrate.


End file.
